I have one son, and tomorrow is his birthday. He will be 28 years old. I can hardly believe it. Many of you have never met him and only know him as the guy who argues with his Dad a lot on Facebook. Others reading this have known him since he was a baby. He's quite a kid, this son of mine. And incidentally, my daughter argues with me just as much as her brother does...just not on Facebook as much!
I hesitate calling him a good boy, since that makes him sound like a middle schooler. He's a grown man, I hate to admit, since that makes me kinda old. But the fact of the matter is, he is a good boy. He's whip smart, talented and funny. He has a good heart, a pure heart, in that there's lots of room in there for his fellow man. Four years ago when he was still in graduate school, on his 24th birthday, I wrote this...
The thing I’m most proud of in my boy is his ability to think for himself. Patrick will never be bullied into group-think. He thinks things through and comes to his own conclusions about difficult problems. He doesn’t believe a certain way just because his father does. He thinks. He researches things, listens to others and makes his own informed judgment. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we don’t, but I’m always proud of how he arrives at his views, through careful thought, without lazy reliance on dogma. When his views aren’t popular, he has the courage to defend them. A father can’t ask for much more than that.
Yes, my son and I often disagree on issues great and small, especially, on Facebook. But whenever we go at it I am reminded that he learned his argumentative style from his father, so I suppose I should take it as a compliment.
I'm very proud of my son. He's working his tail off in a city with a different time zone than mine. He has two jobs and is constantly taking on song writing and arranging assignments, all the while spending as much of his spare time as possible in volunteer music projects all over Nashville. Whenever we travel there his friends speak so fondly of him, clear confirmation to his parents that it's not just us, other people see it too.
My son is a good boy.
I hesitate calling him a good boy, since that makes him sound like a middle schooler. He's a grown man, I hate to admit, since that makes me kinda old. But the fact of the matter is, he is a good boy. He's whip smart, talented and funny. He has a good heart, a pure heart, in that there's lots of room in there for his fellow man. Four years ago when he was still in graduate school, on his 24th birthday, I wrote this...
The thing I’m most proud of in my boy is his ability to think for himself. Patrick will never be bullied into group-think. He thinks things through and comes to his own conclusions about difficult problems. He doesn’t believe a certain way just because his father does. He thinks. He researches things, listens to others and makes his own informed judgment. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we don’t, but I’m always proud of how he arrives at his views, through careful thought, without lazy reliance on dogma. When his views aren’t popular, he has the courage to defend them. A father can’t ask for much more than that.
Yes, my son and I often disagree on issues great and small, especially, on Facebook. But whenever we go at it I am reminded that he learned his argumentative style from his father, so I suppose I should take it as a compliment.
I'm very proud of my son. He's working his tail off in a city with a different time zone than mine. He has two jobs and is constantly taking on song writing and arranging assignments, all the while spending as much of his spare time as possible in volunteer music projects all over Nashville. Whenever we travel there his friends speak so fondly of him, clear confirmation to his parents that it's not just us, other people see it too.
My son is a good boy.
No comments:
Post a Comment